Mark Beaumont had done a few long distance
rides, including Land’s End to John O’ Groats while still at school and Sicily
to Innsbruck during his pre-university gap year, and as his degree course
neared its conclusion the idea of cycling round the world began to take hold.
But not just cycling, racing to set a new record.
On graduating he spent 31 days cycling 2,700
miles around Scandinavia and the Balkans, leading him to believe 100 miles a
day was a sustainable pace; at that rate the 18,000 mile ‘True Circumnavigation
of the Globe by Bicycle’ looked possible in 180 days. Adding a day off per
fortnight for rest, recuperation and intercontinental transfers would still
total only 195 days, some 81 days less than the existing Guinness world record.
Though looking physically feasible the logistical
planning and securing financial backing for the trip would be as big a
challenge, but within 12 months he was sufficiently prepared to set off from
Paris with loaded bike and a mobile phone his only contact to his ‘base camp’
operated by his mother, Una, in Scotland.
This pre-race stage is covered only briefly
in the book which soon dives into the realities of the ride with three main themes
emerging.
First there’s the day by day grinding out of
the miles – the route, the road surface, the terrain, the weather, the mileage
and the time, the condition of the bike, the wear and tear on the body
(particularly that bit in most contact with the bike), getting enough to eat
and finding somewhere to sleep – which all combines to give a real feel for the
scale of the task and respect for the physical and mental effort involved.
Secondly the unfolding cultural diversity is
related; he’s racing not touring so there’s no time to seek out universal
truths, he just shares his experiences, acknowledging the narrowness of his
perspective.
The third strand is dealing with the
bureaucratic and organisational frustrations of international travel, particularly
border crossings, intercontinental flights (with a bike), and the mobilisation
of help in far flung places for a moving target (tracked by GPS) from a network
of friends of friends, embassy contacts, and the global cycling community
(often supplemented by random acts of kindness by strangers met en route). This
is all coordinated by Una at base camp, whose short postscript gives a flavour
of her vital if virtual involvement in the journey.
It’s an enjoyable read if you, like me, are
an enthusiastic armchair explorer / adventurer. I took my time, reading a few
pages a day, making it almost a real time experience, so that when the 18,000
miles (or nearly 600 pages) were completed (no spoiler here – the title does
that) the sense of achievement and feeling of elation were easy to share.
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